Opening Bid Not Permitted
Playing in a Level 4 tournament on BBO, dealer opened 1H with 7 HCP and a Rule of 17 hand. No system card was available. The Blue Book 7A3 does not permit this.
- Is it possible to award an adjusted score of 60%-40% on the board? (Or make any other adjustment?)
- If not, is the bid automatically a psyche?
It has been suggested to me that the bid could be viewed as a deviation and not a psyche and with no adjustment to the score being possible. However, this seems to make it pointless prohibiting such bids as players could just go ahead and make the bid anyway without any redress, so long as they were not fielded.
Comments
The best start is to ask the player why he opened 1:heart:. Much depends also on how many hearts were held in that hand. We want to know if the opening was a mis-bid (includes mis-clicked bid), a psyche/deviation, or evidence of a non-permitted agreement.
If there are few hearts in the hand, the player is likely to convince me that he has psyched or deviated or mis-bid, so that there would be no evidence of a non-permitted agreement. The more hearts the player has, the more likely the player is to argue that it is a perfectly reasonable opening bid and that therefore he would make the same bid again next time with the same hand, and that provides evidence of a non-permitted agreement.
The EBU White Book covers whether and how you adjust for each of these possibilities. See 1.4 and 2.8.3.2 and 8.40.3. You'll note that the distinction between a psyche and a deviation is not very important.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
I might view it as a deviation third in, where stretching to make a bid is fairly normal bridge. 7A3 of the Blue Book is quite definite that you need 8+ HCP by agreement though, I can't find an exemption for 3rd seat. So it should probably just be viewed as a psych.
Psychic bids are permitted so long as there's a pattern, we follow the whole red / amber / green classification and file a record the psych. We don't normally adjust automatically, we'd have to either consider the pair to systemically open the hand, in which case they're playing an illegal agreement, or if there's blatant enough fielding to class it as a red psych.
Pointing to 8.40.3 is very helpful as it speaks about using an illegal agreement rather than having one. The Blue Book is clear that it is illegal to have an agreement to bid 1H with this hand. So, I would say that bidding 1H was definitely the use of an illegal agreement.
There's no suggestion that the 1H was fielded by dealer's partner. The opposition ended up as declarers. At no point did the dealer make any comment about their bid of 1H.
So far, it would appear that either
A: Dealer could try to persuade me that they misbid and meant to bid 3H. I'm not sure how amenable I am to this, as the bid should have been alerted and explained before being made, and it wasn't.
or
B: I apply WB 8.40.3 and score as 60%-40%
I'd welcome further comments.
That may be an example of incorrect logic. The fact that a player opened 1 Heart on 7 points does not mean that there was an (illegal) agreement to open 1 heart on 7 points. Partner is asked about the hand and he says "To be honest I expected more high card strength for the bid" or "Well to me that is a 3-heart opening bid", then there is no perceived agreement. If he says "Well that's an exceptional hand - I might have done the same" then there is an implicit agreement.
I don't think you can call it a psych since it isn't a 'gross' misstatement in honour strength..." - So it will have to be a deviation.
"A player may make any call or play without prior anouncement provided that such call or play is not based on an undisclosed partnership agreement" (Law 40A3 - which then refers to Law 40C1 - which further clarifies the effects of repeated deviations and psychic calling i.e. may become an agreement)
I agree with weejonnie that it makes it easy if dealer's partner says they would have done the same. (Or if the opener says they're happy to open a 7-card suit on that point count.) Then there is evidence of an illegal agreement.
I was suggesting that 8.40.3 does not say that there has to be an agreement, merely that an illegal agreement has been used. The blue book says that opening as light as that would constitute an illegal agreement. So I conclude that an illegal agreement has been used.
As I said in my original post, if making a bid that is expressly forbidden is merely classed as a deviation, that seems to undermine the point of having the prohibition of the bid in the Blue Book.
At the top of page 20 in the BB it says
"At level 2 for example it is permitted to agree to open on hands meeting the rule of 19, so a partnership may agree to open 1 Spade on the second hand (which complies with the rule of 19) but not the first (which doesn't).
My emphasis and my notes in brackets. AIUI the book means you may not agree to open on lighter hands. Similarly 6C1 states
A one-level opening bid in a suit must either show 11+HCP, or show 8+ HCP and satisfy the Rule of 19.
(my emphasis again)
7A3 (the level 4 equivalent) also uses the words 'show'.
Yes, the Blue Book is clear that you must not have an agreement to open 1H at Level 4 with 7 HCP and/or a Rule of 17 holding.
And your conclusion, based on Law 40A3, seems to be that, so long as you don't have an explicit agreement to. open that light you can do so and it will be merely considered a deviation.
It seems to me that anybody familiar with the laws, will have a system card which declares a legal system, but be able to open as light as they like with impunity. Which seems to undermine the point of having 7A3 in the first place.
Or am I still missing something?
They can open light BUT
Once is happenstance: twice is coincidence: thrid time is enemy action. i.e. once you do it three times partner may expect it and therefore you have an implicit agreement.
(The above is not exact of course - it is taken from Goldfinger (the book) - even one such call can provide evidence)
A quote I remember from my teenage years!
Thanks.
So the only answer is to note it - and any hand can be recorded for future reference. It is frustrating but one swallow doesn't make a summer, especially when you don't see other swallows fly by.
The opening statement "... Level 4 tournament on BBO ..." fails to contain all the relevant information. Was it an EBU tournament or some other BBO tournament?
If it was not an EBU affiliated tournament then the EBU Blue Blue does not apply.
The EBU Blue Book may apply even if it is not an EBU affiliated tournament. It depends on the regulations specified by the Tournament Organiser (Law 80B2f). It may be a WBU (Welsh Bridge Union) event for example.
I think "Level 4" in this forum can be taken to mean EBU Level 4. I wonder if anyone knows of any other RA that has a different "Level 4"?
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
"So the only answer is to note it"
If you don't talk with the players, you might never make a ruling of use of a non-permitted agreement.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
As Regulating Authority, the Club advertises that the tournament is run under EBU Level 4 regulations.